[Event of the week]
Supreme Court of Appeals releases İlhan Cihaner after controversial merger

“The suspect [Cihaner] was arrested regardless of whether the accusations directed at him were strong enough for an arrest,” the chamber noted, adding that it had decided to release the suspect without any conditions. In a case heard until Friday by the Erzurum court, Cihaner is accused of working in line with a suspected military plot to undermine the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Titled the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism, the plot mentions a subversive plan to plant ammunition and weapons in the houses of members of some religious communities. The munitions were to be found later during a police search, resulting in the residents of those places being accused of terrorist activities. Cihaner is also accused of abuse of power and the falsification of documents during an investigation he conducted, in a case heard by the 11th Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals. For most observers the 11th Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals’ decision on the Cihaner case was “unprecedented” in Turkey, and the decision elicited remarks that it is against laws and regulations for a court to release a suspect from prison without examining the case file.

Friday’s decision is a strong indicator that plans to save Cihaner from prison ran like clockwork. A plan to save him was exposed last month with the emergence of a voice recording that appeared on news websites.

 Amidst concerns that Spain’s six-month EU presidency could end without any new chapters being opened in Turkey’s accession negotiations with the bloc, Turkey’s chief EU negotiator, State Minister Egemen Bağış, announced that a new chapter will be opened on June 30, the day Spain’s six-month-long rotating presidency ends.

 An indictment prepared by prosecutors investigating the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), an organization that allegedly functions as the urban arm of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was presented to the Diyarbakır 6th High Criminal Court. The indictment demands a 36.5-year jail sentence for Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir -- and also details how Baydemir, one of 151 defendants in the case, was pushed to the brink of suicide under pressure from the terrorist group.

June 13 Sunday

 The Constitutional Court’s rapporteur said that Parliament should protect Turkey’s Constitution from the high court should it violate the law of the land, adding that he has no plans to retract an earlier statement that the government should ignore the court if it annuls a constitutional reform package on which it is set to rule on July 7.

 The 14,517 bookworms that converged on İstanbul’s Ali Sami Yen football stadium on Sunday in an effort to break the Guinness World Record for the book reading event with the highest participation saw their efforts fall short of the mark, as organizers failed to garner attendance high enough to beat the standing record of 15,440 people. The stadium was full of people, including students from schools across the city and bookworms from every walk of life, for the event organized by the Düşün Taşın Association, a group whose professed goal is to increase literacy and reading rates amongst Turkish society and which regularly holds Sunday book readings.

 Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized foreign media outlets and like-minded media groups at home that have claimed that the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) recent stance on Israel indicates a shift in Turkey’s foreign policy, calling such assessments attempts to intimidate the government into staying silent in the face of injustice.

 One Turkish soldier was killed and four others were injured in an armed clash with terrorists from the PKK in the southeastern province of Hakkari, near Turkey’s border with Iraq, late on Sunday.

June 14 Monday

 Arab and Turkish intellectuals at the conference “Turkish-Arab relations: From long-standing inaction to a new dynamism in the early 21st century,” organized as part of the Turkish Arab Forum, praised the new role of Turkey in the Middle East and underlined that Turkey is returning to the region in a very active role. At the meeting, organized by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), participants also stressed the role of the ruling AK Party as the main force behind these ties with the Arab world and underlined that the deepening economic and cultural ties between Turkey and Arab countries will make this role stable and sustainable.

 The crisis in the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) surrounding former CHP İstanbul provincial branch President Gürsel Tekin, who played a major role in gaining votes for new party head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu when he ran for the İstanbul mayoral post during last year’s March 29 local elections, was resolved, with Tekin being appointed to the party’s Central Executive Board (MYK). Berhan Şimşek replaced Tekin.

 President Abdullah Gül criticized the revival of a long-debated claim that Turkey has been changing the axis of its foreign policy and leaning towards the East, saying such claims stem either from ignorance or bad will.

 Former CHP leader Deniz Baykal used former Justice Minister Seyfi Oktay’s influence to sway the Constitutional Court’s decision on the government’s constitutional amendment package, phone records obtained through the legal monitoring of Oktay’s conversations revealed. The package will be discussed in the high court as part of an appeal launched by the CHP.

 Turkey expressed an absolute lack of confidence in a commission set up by Israel to probe a deadly raid on Gaza-bound aid ships, while clearly warning of unspecified measures in its bilateral relations with Israel if a UN-led inquiry is not carried out. “We don’t have any confidence at all that Israel will conduct an impartial investigation -- as a country which attacked a civilian convoy in international waters, thereby committing a violation of international law,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told reporters in Ankara.

June 15 Tuesday

 The 2nd Turkey-World Trade Bridge, organized by the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), opened its doors in İstanbul, with participants calling on nations around the world to work together to combat poverty. Speakers at the inaugural event emphasized the undeniable role of global economic integration in surmounting clashes and fights between nations.

 The İstanbul 12th High Criminal Court accepted a request from the lawyers of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos for co-plaintiff status in the trial of an alleged Naval Forces Command plan, the Cage Operation Action Plan. Co-plaintiff status grants a person, or their legal representatives, the right to take part in an ongoing legal action along with the prosecution.

 Over 100 Turkish nationals who were evacuated from the turmoil-stricken Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, where ethnic clashes killed at least 117 people and injured more than 1,100 others this week, arrived in Turkey on a flight that was organized by the Turkish government.

 Şimşek, the new president of the CHP’s İstanbul provincial branch, stated that religious-minded individuals are more than welcome in his party, stressing that they want to make peace with the faithful segments of society.

 Prime Minister Erdoğan drew attention to the timing of a recent peak in acts of terror by the PKK, saying they coincide with the concerted efforts of the government to expand rights and freedoms in Turkey.

June 16 Wednesday

 Tension that broke out between Turkey and Israel when the latter killed eight Turkish citizens and a US citizen of Turkish origin in a raid on a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla has resulted in Turkey freezing bilateral relations with Israel -- but joint projects and contracts signed with Israeli companies will remain as they are. The Defense Industry Implementation Committee (SSİK) convened under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Erdoğan to take up the issue of military agreements and projects with Israel. Turkey -- which recalled its ambassador to Tel Aviv and cancelled three planned military training exercises in the aftermath of the bloody Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship -- shelved 16 bilateral agreements due to Israel’s refusal to apologize for the killings or pay compensation. Thus, all Turkish-Israeli agreements at the state level have been cancelled.

 Records of phone conversations legally monitored as part of an investigation into the clandestine, coup-plotting group Ergenekon revealed that the criminal organization has been waging a major campaign to influence the judge presiding over the Ergenekon trial, which indicates that other judges in the trial of Ergenekon suspects as well as the prosecutors might be targets of similar attempts.

 One infantry specialist sergeant was killed and one village guard injured in an armed clash with PKK terrorists in Uludere, Şırnak province.

June 17 Thursday

 The Supreme Court of Appeals overturned a decision by an Ankara court stipulating that President Gül should stand trial in a decade-old fraud case “for the sake of law.”

 Retired Adm. Ahmet Feyyaz Öğütçü, currently on trial for an alleged Naval Forces Command plan, pointed to Adm. Metin Ataç as the person to be questioned about the placement of blocks of TNT and other explosives at the bottom of a submarine exhibited at the Rahmi M. Koç Museum. The explosives were found by police last year based on a plan outlined in the Cage Operation Action Plan. The explosives were to be detonated while a group of students visited the museum.

 Former Justice Minister Seyfi Oktay testified to civilian prosecutors for nearly 15 hours under the supervision of a doctor over his suspected ties to Ergenekon. Oktay responded to around 600 questions from Ankara Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Hamza Keleş and prosecutor Mustafa Bilgili. The ex-minister was detained earlier this month on the grounds that he was attempting to influence the course of the Ergenekon probe.

 The European Parliament in its vote on Thursday condemned a deadly Israeli raid on the aid flotilla heading for Gaza and a blockade imposed on that territory by the Jewish state.

June 18 Friday

 In a controversial ruling, the 11th Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals ruled to set free Erzincan Chief Public Prosecutor İlhan Cihaner, who is accused of membership in a terrorist organization and abuse of power in separate cases.

 The Turkish military said it had killed as many as 120 PKK terrorists in an air raid in northern Iraq last month and a daylong incursion by elite commandos into Iraq this week, bringing total PKK deaths to 130 since March, but cautioned that it anticipates PKK terror attacks to continue.

 The Ankara Police Department’s Organized Crime and Narcotics Unit detained a large number of people, wanted for various crimes, at dawn in surprise raids on different locations in the Mamak and Altındağ districts.

 Prime Minister Erdoğan reacted strongly to a compensation ruling handed down by the Supreme Court of Appeals to certain judges at separate high criminal courts for not ruling for the release of Başkent University Rector Mehmet Haberal, saying there could only be an ideological reason behind such a ruling.

 A court in the Black Sea province of Samsun released İsmail Çelik (23), pending trial. Çelik punched Ahmet Türk, the leader of the now-defunct Democratic Society Party (DTP), in the face in April. Çelik’s lawyer, Serkan Karaduman, speaking as his client was released on Friday by the Samsun 4th Court of First Instance, said Çelik will not apologize to Türk but to the “Turkish people” and the “state.”